Amazon EC2 FAQs

Q: What is changing?

Starting July 2018, all newly created EC2 resources will receive longer format IDs. The new format will only apply to newly created resources; your existing resources won’t be affected. Instances and volumes already use this ID format. Through the end of June 2018, customers will have the ability to opt-in to use longer IDs. During this time, you can choose which ID format resources are assigned and update your management tools and scripts to add support for the longer format. Please visit this documentation for instructions.

Q: Why is this necessary?

Given how fast AWS continues to grow, we will start to run low on IDs for certain resources in 2018. In order to enable the long-term, uninterrupted creation of new resources, we need to introduce a longer ID format. All Amazon EC2 resource IDs will change to the longer format in July 2018.

Q: I already opted in for longer IDs last year. Why do I need to opt-in again?

In 2016, we moved to the longer ID format for Amazon EC2 instances, reservations, volumes, and snapshots only. This opt-in changes the ID format for all remaining EC2 resource types

Q: What will the new identifier format look like?

The new identifier format will follow the pattern of the current identifier format, but it will be longer. The new format will be -<17 characters>, e.g. “vpc-1234567890abcdef0” for VPCs or “subnet-1234567890abcdef0” for subnets.

Q: Which IDs are changing?

• bundle
• conversion-task
• customer-gateway
• dhcp-options
• elastic-ip-allocation
• elastic-ip-association
• export-task
• flow-log
• image
• import-task
• internet-gateway
• network-acl
• network-acl-association
• network-interface
• network-interface-attachment
• prefix-list
• route-table
• route-table-association
• security-group
• subnet
• subnet-cidr-block-association
• vpc
• vpc-cidr-block-assocation
• vpc-endpoint
• vpc-peering-connection
• vpn-connection
• vpn-gateway

Q: How does this impact me?

There is a good chance that you won’t need to make any system changes to handle the new format. If you only use the console to manage AWS resources, you might not be impacted at all, but you should still update your settings to use the longer ID format as soon as possible. If you interact with AWS resources via APIs, SDKs, or the AWS CLI, you might be impacted, depending on whether your software makes assumptions about the ID format when validating or persisting resource IDs. If this is the case, you might need to update your systems to handle the new format.
Some failure modes could include:

• If your systems use regular expressions to validate the ID format, you might error if a longer format is encountered.
• If there are expectations about the ID length in your database schemas, you might be unable to store a longer ID.
  

Q: Will this affect existing resources?

No. Only resources that are created after you opt-in to the longer format will be affected. Once a resource has been assigned an ID (long or short), that ID will never change. Each ID is unique and will never be reused. Any resource created with the old ID format will always retain its shorter ID. Any resource created with the new format will retain its longer ID, even if you opt back out.

Q: When will this happen?

Through the end of June 2018, longer IDs will be available for opt-in via APIs and the EC2 Console. All accounts can opt-in and out of longer IDs as needed for testing. Starting on July 1, 2018, the option to switch formats will no longer be available, and newly created EC2 resources to receive longer IDs. All regions launching in July 2018 and onward will only support longer IDs.

Q: Why is there an opt-in period?

We want to give you as much time as possible to test your systems with the new format. This transition time offers maximum flexibility to test and update your systems incrementally and will help minimize interrupts as you add support for the new format, if necessary.

Q: How do I opt in and out of receiving longer IDs?

Throughout the transition period (Now through the end of June 2018), you can opt to receive longer or shorter IDs by using the APIs or the EC2 Console. Instructions are provided in this documentation.

Q: What will happen if I take no action?

If you do not opt-in to the new format during the transition period, you will be automatically begin receiving the longer format IDs after July 1, 2018. We do not recommend this approach. It is better to add support for the new format during the transition window, which offers the opportunity for controlled testing.

Q: What if I prefer to keep receiving the shorter ID format after the end of June 2018?

This is not possible regardless of your user settings specified.

Q: When will the longer IDs’ final transition happen?

In July 2018, your newly created resources will start to receive longer IDs. You can check the scheduled transition date for your each region by using the AWS CLI describe-id-format.

Q: If I opt in to longer IDs and then opt back out during the transition period, what will happen to resources that were created with longer IDs?

Once a resource has been assigned an ID it will not change, so resources that are created with longer IDs will retain the longer IDs regardless of later actions. If you opt in to the longer format, create resources, and then opt out, you will see a mix of long and short resource IDs, even after opting out. The only way to get rid of long IDs will be to delete or terminate the respective resources. For this reason, exercise caution and avoid creating critical resources with the new format until you have tested your tools and automation.

Q: What should I do if my systems are not working as expected before the transition period ends?

If your systems are not working as expected during the transition period, you can temporarily opt out of longer format IDs and remediate your systems, however your account will automatically be transitioned back to using longer IDs after the end of June 2018. Regardless of your account settings, all new resources will receive the longer format IDs, so it is important for you to test your systems with longer format IDs before the transition period ends. By testing and opting in earlier, you give yourself valuable time to make modifications to your resources with short resource IDs and you minimize the risk of any impact to your systems.

Q: What will happen if I launch resources in multiple regions during the transition period?

Your resources’ ID length will depend upon the region you launch your resources. If the region has already transitioned to using longer IDs, resources launched in that region will have longer format IDs; if not, they will have shorter resource IDs. Therefore, during the transition window, you may see a mix of shorter and longer resource IDs.

Q: If AWS adds new regions during the transition period, will new regions support longer IDs?

Yes. All new regions launching after July 2018 will issue longer format IDs by default for both new and existing accounts.

Q: What will be the default ID type for new accounts?

Accounts created on March 15, 2018 or later will be configured to receive the longer ID format by default in every AWS region except AWS GovCloud (US). If you are a new customer, this will make the transition to longer IDs really simple. If you would like your new account to assign the shorter ID format to your resources, then simply reconfigure your account for shorter IDs as described above. This workflow will be necessary until you are ready for your accounts to receive longer IDs.

Q: Will I need to upgrade to a new version of the AWS SDKs or CLI?

The following AWS CLI and SDKs are fully compatible with longer IDs: PHP v2.8.27+, PHP v3.15.0+, AWS CLI v1.10.2+, Boto3v1.2.1+, Botocorev1.3.24+, PHP v1, Boto v1, Boto v2, Ruby v1, Ruby v2, JavaScript, Java, .NET, AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell, and Go.

Q: How can I test my systems with longer IDs?

Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) with longer format IDs have been published for testing purposes. Instruction on how to access these AMIs are provided here.

Q: What is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)?

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Q: What can I do with Amazon EC2?

Just as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables storage in the cloud, Amazon EC2 enables “compute” in the cloud. Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.

Q: How can I get started with Amazon EC2?

To sign up for Amazon EC2, click the “Sign up for This Web Service” button on the Amazon EC2 detail page. You must have an Amazon Web Services account to access this service; if you do not already have one, you will be prompted to create one when you begin the Amazon EC2 sign-up process. After signing up, please refer to the Amazon EC2 documentation, which includes our Getting Started Guide.

Q: Why am I asked to verify my phone number when signing up for Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 registration requires you to have a valid phone number and email address on file with AWS in case we ever need to contact you. Verifying your phone number takes only a couple of minutes and involves receiving a phone call during the registration process and entering a PIN number using the phone key pad.

Q: What can developers now do that they could not before?

Until now, small developers did not have the capital to acquire massive compute resources and ensure they had the capacity they needed to handle unexpected spikes in load. Amazon EC2 enables any developer to leverage Amazon’s own benefits of massive scale with no up-front investment or performance compromises. Developers are now free to innovate knowing that no matter how successful their businesses become, it will be inexpensive and simple to ensure they have the compute capacity they need to meet their business requirements.

The “Elastic” nature of the service allows developers to instantly scale to meet spikes in traffic or demand. When computing requirements unexpectedly change (up or down), Amazon EC2 can instantly respond, meaning that developers have the ability to control how many resources are in use at any given point in time. In contrast, traditional hosting services generally provide a fixed number of resources for a fixed amount of time, meaning that users have a limited ability to easily respond when their usage is rapidly changing, unpredictable, or is known to experience large peaks at various intervals.

Q: How do I run systems in the Amazon EC2 environment?

Once you have set up your account and select or create your AMIs, you are ready to boot your instance. You can start your AMI on any number of On-Demand instances by using the RunInstances API call. You simply need to indicate how many instances you wish to launch. If you wish to run more than 20 On-Demand instances, complete the Amazon EC2 instance request form.

If Amazon EC2 is able to fulfill your request, RunInstances will return success, and we will start launching your instances. You can check on the status of your instances using the DescribeInstances API call. You can also programmatically terminate any number of your instances using the TerminateInstances API call.

If you have a running instance using an Amazon EBS boot partition, you can also use the StopInstances API call to release the compute resources but preserve the data on the boot partition. You can use the StartInstances API when you are ready to restart the associated instance with the Amazon EBS boot partition.

In addition, you have the option to use Spot Instances to reduce your computing costs when you have flexibility in when your applications can run. Read more about Spot Instances for a more detailed explanation on how Spot Instances work.

If you prefer, you can also perform all these actions from the AWS Management Console or through the command line using our command line tools, which have been implemented with this web service API.

Q: What is the difference between using the local instance store and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) for the root device?

When you launch your Amazon EC2 instances you have the ability to store your root device data on Amazon EBS or the local instance store. By using Amazon EBS, data on the root device will persist independently from the lifetime of the instance. This enables you to stop and restart the instance at a subsequent time, which is similar to shutting down your laptop and restarting it when you need it again.

Alternatively, the local instance store only persists during the life of the instance. This is an inexpensive way to launch instances where data is not stored to the root device. For example, some customers use this option to run large web sites where each instance is a clone to handle web traffic.

Q: How quickly will systems be running?

It typically takes less than 10 minutes from the issue of the RunInstances call to the point where all requested instances begin their boot sequences. This time depends on a number of factors including: the size of your AMI, the number of instances you are launching, and how recently you have launched that AMI. Images launched for the first time may take slightly longer to boot.

Q: How do I load and store my systems with Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 allows you to set up and configure everything about your instances from your operating system up to your applications. An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is simply a packaged-up environment that includes all the necessary bits to set up and boot your instance. Your AMIs are your unit of deployment. You might have just one AMI or you might compose your system out of several building block AMIs (e.g., webservers, appservers, and databases). Amazon EC2 provides a number of tools to make creating an AMI easy. Once you create a custom AMI, you will need to bundle it. If you are bundling an image with a root device backed by Amazon EBS, you can simply use the bundle command in the AWS Management Console. If you are bundling an image with a boot partition on the instance store, then you will need to use the AMI Tools to upload it to Amazon S3. Amazon EC2 uses Amazon EBS and Amazon S3 to provide reliable, scalable storage of your AMIs so that we can boot them when you ask us to do so.

Or, if you want, you don’t have to set up your own AMI from scratch. You can choose from a number of globally available AMIs that provide useful instances. For example, if you just want a simple Linux server, you can choose one of the standard Linux distribution AMIs.

Q: How do I access my systems?

The RunInstances call that initiates execution of your application stack will return a set of DNS names, one for each system that is being booted. This name can be used to access the system exactly as you would if it were in your own data center. You own that machine while your operating system stack is executing on it.

Q: Is Amazon EC2 used in conjunction with Amazon S3?

Yes, Amazon EC2 is used jointly with Amazon S3 for instances with root devices backed by local instance storage. By using Amazon S3, developers have access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. In order to execute systems in the Amazon EC2 environment, developers use the tools provided to load their AMIs into Amazon S3 and to move them between Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2. See How do I load and store my systems with Amazon EC2? for more information about AMIs.

We expect developers to find the combination of Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 to be very useful. Amazon EC2 provides cheap, scalable compute in the cloud while Amazon S3 allows users to store their data reliably.

Q: How many instances can I run in Amazon EC2?

You are limited to running up to a total of 20 On-Demand instances across the instance family, purchasing 20 Reserved Instances, and requesting Spot Instances per your dynamic Spot limit per region. New AWS accounts may start with limits that are lower than the limits described here. Certain instance types are further limited per region as follows:

Note that cc2.8xlarge, hs1.8xlarge, cr1.8xlarge, G2, D2, and I2 instances are not available in all regions.

If you need more instances, complete the Amazon EC2 instance request form with your use case and your instance increase will be considered. Limit increases are tied to the region they were requested for.

Q: Are there any limitations in sending email from Amazon EC2 instances?

Yes. In order to maintain the quality of Amazon EC2 addresses for sending email, we enforce default limits on the amount of email that can be sent from EC2 accounts. If you wish to send larger amounts of email from EC2, you can apply to have these limits removed from your account by filling out this form.

Q: How quickly can I scale my capacity both up and down?

Amazon EC2 provides a truly elastic computing environment. Amazon EC2 enables you to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days. You can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. When you need more instances, you simply call RunInstances, and Amazon EC2 will typically set up your new instances in a matter of minutes. Of course, because this is all controlled with web service APIs, your application can automatically scale itself up and down depending on its needs.

Q: What operating system environments are supported?

Amazon EC2 currently supports a variety of operating systems including: Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Gentoo Linux, Oracle Linux, and FreeBSD. We are looking for ways to expand it to other platforms.

Q: Does Amazon EC2 use ECC memory?

In our experience, ECC memory is necessary for server infrastructure, and all the hardware underlying Amazon EC2 uses ECC memory.

Q: How is this service different than a plain hosting service?

Traditional hosting services generally provide a pre-configured resource for a fixed amount of time and at a predetermined cost. Amazon EC2 differs fundamentally in the flexibility, control and significant cost savings it offers developers, allowing them to treat Amazon EC2 as their own personal data center with the benefit of Amazon.com’s robust infrastructure.

When computing requirements unexpectedly change (up or down), Amazon EC2 can instantly respond, meaning that developers have the ability to control how many resources are in use at any given point in time. In contrast, traditional hosting services generally provide a fixed number of resources for a fixed amount of time, meaning that users have a limited ability to easily respond when their usage is rapidly changing, unpredictable, or is known to experience large peaks at various intervals.

Secondly, many hosting services don’t provide full control over the compute resources being provided. Using Amazon EC2, developers can choose not only to initiate or shut down instances at any time, they can completely customize the configuration of their instances to suit their needs – and change it at any time. Most hosting services cater more towards groups of users with similar system requirements, and so offer limited ability to change these.

Finally, with Amazon EC2 developers enjoy the benefit of paying only for their actual resource consumption – and at very low rates. Most hosting services require users to pay a fixed, up-front fee irrespective of their actual computing power used, and so users risk overbuying resources to compensate for the inability to quickly scale up resources within a short time frame. 

Q. What does your Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement guarantee?

Our SLA guarantees a Monthly Uptime Percentage of at least 99.99% for Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS within a Region.

Q. How do I know if I qualify for a SLA Service Credit?

You are eligible for a SLA credit for either Amazon EC2 or Amazon EBS (whichever was Unavailable, or both if both were Unavailable) if the Region that you are operating in has an Monthly Uptime Percentage of less than 99.95% during any monthly billing cycle. For full details on all of the terms and conditions of the SLA, as well as details on how to submit a claim, please see http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/sla/

Q: What are Accelerated Computing instances?

Accelerated Computing instance family is a family of instances which use hardware accelerators, or co-processors, to perform some functions, such as floating-point number calculation and graphics processing, more efficiently than is possible in software running on CPUs. Amazon EC2 provides three types of Accelerated Computing instances – GPU compute instances for general-purpose computing, GPU graphics instances for graphics intensive applications, and FPGA programmable hardware compute instances for advanced scientific workloads.

Q. When should I use GPU Graphics and Compute instances?

GPU instances work best for applications with massive parallelism such as workloads using thousands of threads. Graphics processing is an example with huge computational requirements, where each of the tasks is relatively small, the set of operations performed form a pipeline, and the throughput of this pipeline is more important than the latency of the individual operations. To be able build applications that exploit this level of parallelism, one needs GPU device specific knowledge by understanding how to program against various graphics APIs (DirectX, OpenGL) or GPU compute programming models (CUDA, OpenCL).

Q: How are P3 instances different from G3 instances?

P3 instances are the next-generation of EC2 general-purpose GPU computing instances, powered by up to 8 of the latest-generation NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs. These new instances significantly improve performance and scalability, and add many new features, including new Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) architecture for machine learning (ML)/deep learning (DL) performance optimization, second-generation NVIDIA NVLink high-speed GPU interconnect, and highly tuned HBM2 memory for higher-efficiency.

G3 instances use NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs and provide a high-performance platform for graphics applications using DirectX or OpenGL. NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs support NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation features, and H.265 (HEVC) hardware encoding. Each M60 GPU in G3 instances supports 4 monitors with resolutions up to 4096x2160, and is licensed to use NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation for one Concurrent Connected User. Example applications of G3 instances include 3D visualizations, graphics-intensive remote workstation, 3D rendering, application streaming, video encoding, and other server-side graphics workloads.

Q: What are the benefits of NVIDIA Volta GV100 GPUs?

The new NVIDIA Tesla V100 accelerator incorporates the powerful new Volta GV100 GPU. GV100 not only builds upon the advances of its predecessor, the Pascal GP100 GPU, it significantly improves performance and scalability, and adds many new features that improve programmability. These advances will supercharge HPC, data center, supercomputer, and deep learning systems and applications.

Q: Who will benefit from P3 instances?

P3 instances with their high computational performance will benefit users in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL) and high performance computing (HPC) applications. Users includes data scientists, data architects, data analysts, scientific researchers, ML engineers, IT managers and software developers. Key industries include transportation, energy/oil & gas, financial services (banking, insurance), healthcare, pharmaceutical, sciences, IT, retail, manufacturing, high-tech, transportation, government, academia, among many others.

Q: What are some key use cases of P3 instances?

P3 instance use GPUs to accelerate numerous deep learning systems and applications including autonomous vehicle platforms, speech, image, and text recognition systems, intelligent video analytics, molecular simulations, drug discovery, disease diagnosis, weather forecasting, big data analytics, financial modeling, robotics, factory automation, real-time language translation, online search optimizations, and personalized user recommendations, to name just a few.

Q: Why should customers use GPU-powered Amazon P3 instances for AI/ML and HPC?

GPU-based compute instances provide greater throughput and performance because they are designed for massively parallel processing using thousands of specialized cores per GPU, versus CPUs offering sequential processing with a few cores. In addition, developers have built hundreds of GPU-optimized scientific HPC applications such as quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, meteorology, among many others. Research indicates that over 70% of the most popular HPC applications provide built-in support for GPUs.

Q: Will P3 instances support EC2 Classic networking and Amazon VPC?

P3 instances will support VPC only.

Q. How are G3 instances different from P2 instances?

G3 instances use NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs and provide a high-performance platform for graphics applications using DirectX or OpenGL. NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs support NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation features, and H.265 (HEVC) hardware encoding. Each M60 GPU in G3 instances supports 4 monitors with resolutions up to 4096x2160, and is licensed to use NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation for one Concurrent Connected User. Example applications of G3 instances include 3D visualizations, graphics-intensive remote workstation, 3D rendering, application streaming, video encoding, and other server-side graphics workloads.

P2 instances use NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPUs and are designed for general purpose GPU computing using the CUDA or OpenCL programming models. P2 instances provide customers with high bandwidth 25 Gbps networking, powerful single and double precision floating-point capabilities, and error-correcting code (ECC) memory, making them ideal for deep learning, high performance databases, computational fluid dynamics, computational finance, seismic analysis, molecular modeling, genomics, rendering, and other server-side GPU compute workloads.

Q: How are P3 instances different from G2 instances?

P3 Instances are the next-generation of EC2 general-purpose GPU computing instances, powered by up to 8 of the latest-generation NVIDIA Volta GV100 GPUs. These new instances significantly improve performance and scalability and add many new features, including new Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) architecture, optimized for machine learning (ML)/deep learning (DL) performance, second-generation NVIDIA NVLink high-speed GPU interconnect, and highly tuned HBM2 memory for higher-efficiency.

P2 instances use NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPUs and are designed for general purpose GPU computing using the CUDA or OpenCL programming models. P2 instances provide customers with high bandwidth 25 Gbps networking, powerful single and double precision floating-point capabilities, and error-correcting code (ECC) memory.

Q. What APIs and programming models are supported by GPU Graphics and Compute instances?

P3 instances support CUDA 9 and OpenCL, P2 instances support CUDA 8 and OpenCL 1.2 and G3 instances support DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, CUDA 8, and OpenCL 1.2.

Q. Where do I get NVIDIA drivers for P3 and G3 instances?

There are two methods by which NVIDIA drivers may be obtained. There are listings on the AWS Marketplace which offer Amazon Linux AMIs and Windows Server AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers pre-installed. You may also launch 64-bit, HVM AMIs and install the drivers yourself. You must visit the NVIDIA driver website and search for the NVIDIA Tesla V100 for P3, NVIDIA Tesla K80 for P2, and NVIDIA Tesla M60 for G3 instances.

Q. Which AMIs can I use with P3, P2 and G3 instances?

You can currently use Windows Server, SUSE Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and Amazon Linux AMIs on P2 and G3 instances. P3 instances only support HVM AMIs. If you want to launch AMIs with operating systems not listed here, contact AWS Customer Support with your request or reach out through EC2 Forums.

Q. Does the use of G2 and G3 instances require third-party licenses?

Aside from the NVIDIA drivers and GRID SDK, the use of G2 and G3 instances does not necessarily require any third-party licenses. However, you are responsible for determining whether your content or technology used on G2 and G3 instances requires any additional licensing. For example, if you are streaming content you may need licenses for some or all of that content. If you are using third-party technology such as operating systems, audio and/or video encoders, and decoders from Microsoft, Thomson, Fraunhofer IIS, Sisvel S.p.A., MPEG-LA, and Coding Technologies, please consult these providers to determine if a license is required. For example, if you leverage the on-board h.264 video encoder on the NVIDIA GRID GPU you should reach out to MPEG-LA for guidance, and if you use mp3 technology you should contact Thomson for guidance.

Q. Why am I not getting NVIDIA GRID features on G3 instances using the driver downloaded from NVIDIA website?

The NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPU used in G3 instances requires a special NVIDIA GRID driver to enable all advanced graphics features, and 4 monitors support with resolution up to 4096x2160. You need to use an AMI with NVIDIA GRID driver pre-installed, or download and install the NVIDIA GRID driver following the AWS documentation.

Q. Why am I unable to see the GPU when using Microsoft Remote Desktop?

When using Remote Desktop, GPUs using the WDDM driver model are replaced with a non-accelerated Remote Desktop display driver. In order to access your GPU hardware, you need to utilize a different remote access tool, such as VNC.

Q. What is Amazon EC2 F1?

Amazon EC2 F1 is a compute instance with programmable hardware you can use for application acceleration. The new F1 instance type provides a high performance, easy to access FPGA for developing and deploying custom hardware accelerations.

Q. What are FPGAs and why do I need them?

FPGAs are programmable integrated circuits that you can configure using software. By using FPGAs you can accelerate your applications up to 30x when compared with servers that use CPUs alone. And, FPGAs are reprogrammable, so you get the flexibility to update and optimize your hardware acceleration without having to redesign the hardware.

Q. How does F1 compare with traditional FPGA solutions?

F1 is an AWS instance with programmable hardware for application acceleration. With F1, you have access to FPGA hardware in a few simple clicks, reducing the time and cost of full-cycle FPGA development and scale deployment from months or years to days. While FPGA technology has been available for decades, adoption of application acceleration has struggled to be successful in both the development of accelerators and the business model of selling custom hardware for traditional enterprises, due to time and cost in development infrastructure, hardware design, and at-scale deployment. With this offering, customers avoid the undifferentiated heavy lifting associated with developing FPGAs in on-premises data centers.

Q: What is an Amazon FPGA Image (AFI)?

The design that you create to program your FPGA is called an Amazon FPGA Image (AFI). AWS provides a service to register, manage, copy, query, and delete AFIs. After an AFI is created, it can be loaded on a running F1 instance. You can load multiple AFIs to the same F1 instance, and can switch between AFIs in runtime without reboot. This lets you quickly test and run multiple hardware accelerations in rapid sequence. You can also offer to other customers on the AWS Marketplace a combination of your FPGA acceleration and an AMI with custom software or AFI drivers.

Q. How do I list my hardware acceleration on the AWS Marketplace?

You would develop your AFI and the software drivers/tools to use this AFI. You would then package these software tools/drivers into an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in an encrypted format. AWS manages all AFIs in the encrypted format you provide to maintain the security of your code. To sell a product in the AWS Marketplace, you or your company must sign up to be an AWS Marketplace reseller, you would then submit your AMI ID and the AFI ID(s) intended to be packaged in a single product. AWS Marketplace will take care of cloning the AMI and AFI(s) to create a product, and associate a product code to these artifacts, such that any end-user subscribing to this product code would have access to this AMI and the AFI(s).

Q. What is available with F1 instances?

For developers, AWS is providing a Hardware Development Kit (HDK) to help accelerate development cycles, a FPGA Developer AMI for development in the cloud, an SDK for AMIs running the F1 instance, and a set of APIs to register, manage, copy, query, and delete AFIs. Both developers and customers have access to the AWS Marketplace where AFIs can be listed and purchased for use in application accelerations.

Q. Do I need to be a FPGA expert to use an F1 instance?

AWS customers subscribing to a F1-optimized AMI from AWS Marketplace do not need to know anything about FPGAs to take advantage of the accelerations provided by the F1 instance and the AWS Marketplace. Simply subscribe to an F1-optimized AMI from the AWS Marketplace with an acceleration that matches the workload. The AMI contains all the software necessary for using the FPGA acceleration. Customers need only write software to the specific API for that accelerator and start using the accelerator.

Q. I’m a FPGA developer, how do I get started with F1 instances?

Developers can get started on the F1 instance by creating an AWS account and downloading the AWS Hardware Development Kit (HDK). The HDK includes documentation on F1, internal FPGA interfaces, and compiler scripts for generating AFI. Developers can start writing their FPGA code to the documented interfaces included in the HDK to create their acceleration function. Developers can launch AWS instances with the FPGA Developer AMI. This AMI includes the development tools needed to compile and simulate the FPGA code. The Developer AMI is best run on the latest C5, M5, or R4 instances. Developers should have experience in the programming languages used for creating FPGA code (i.e. Verilog or VHDL) and an understanding of the operation they wish to accelerate.

Q. I’m not an FPGA developer, how do I get started with F1 instances?

Customers can get started with F1 instances by selecting an accelerator from the AWS Marketplace, provided by AWS Marketplace sellers, and launching an F1 instance with that AMI. The AMI includes all of the software and APIs for that accelerator. AWS manages programming the FPGA with the AFI for that accelerator. Customers do not need any FPGA experience or knowledge to use these accelerators. They can work completely at the software API level for that accelerator.

Q. Does AWS provide a developer kit?

Yes. The Hardware Development Kit (HDK) includes simulation tools and simulation models for developers to simulate, debug, build, and register their acceleration code. The HDK includes code samples, compile scripts, debug interfaces, and many other tools you will need to develop the FPGA code for your F1 instances. You can use the HDK either in an AWS provided AMI, or in your on-premises development environment. These models and scripts are available publically with an AWS account.

Q. Can I use the HDK in my on-premises development environment?

Yes. You can use the Hardware Development Kit HDK either in an AWS-provided AMI, or in your on-premises development environment.

Q. Can I add an FPGA to any EC2 instance type?

No. F1 instances comes in two instance sizes f1.2xlarge and f1.16 xlarge.

Q. When should I use Compute Optimized instances?

Compute Optimized instances are designed for applications that benefit from high compute power. These applications include compute-intensive applications like high-performance web servers, high-performance computing (HPC), scientific modelling, distributed analytics and machine learning inference.

Q. Can I launch C4 instances as Amazon EBS-optimized instances?

Each C4 instance type is EBS-optimized by default. C4 instances 500 Mbps to 4,000 Mbps to EBS above and beyond the general-purpose network throughput provided to the instance. Since this feature is always enabled on C4 instances, launching a C4 instance explicitly as EBS-optimized will not affect the instance's behavior.

Q. How can I use the processor state control feature available on the c4.8xlarge instance?

The c4.8xlarge instance type provides the ability for an operating system to control processor C-states and P-states. This feature is currently available only on Linux instances. You may want to change C-state or P-state settings to increase processor performance consistency, reduce latency, or tune your instance for a specific workload. By default, Amazon Linux provides the highest-performance configuration that is optimal for most customer workloads; however, if your application would benefit from lower latency at the cost of higher single- or dual-core frequencies, or from lower-frequency sustained performance as opposed to bursty Turbo Boost frequencies, then you should consider experimenting with the C-state or P-state configuration options that are available to these instances. For additional information on this feature, see the Amazon EC2 User Guide section on Processor State Control.

Q. Which instances are available within Compute Optimized instances category?

C5 instances: C5 instances are the latest generation of EC2 Compute Optimized instances. C5 instances are based on Intel Xeon Platinum processors, part of the Intel Xeon Scalable (codenamed Skylake-SP) processor family, and are available in 6 sizes and offer up to 72 vCPUs and 144 GiB memory. C5 instances deliver 25% improvement in price/performance compared to C4 instances.

C4 instances: C4 instances are based on Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (codenamed Haswell) processors. C4 instances are available in 5 sizes and offer up to 36 vCPUs and 60 GiB memory.

Q. Should I move my workloads from C3 or C4 instances to C5 instances?

The generational improvement in CPU performance and lower price of C5 instances, which combined result in a 25% price/performance improvement relative to C4 instances, benefit a broad spectrum of workloads that currently run on C3 or C4 instances. For floating point intensive applications, Intel AVX-512 enables significant improvements in delivered TFLOPS by effectively extracting data level parallelism. Customers looking for absolute performance for graphics rendering and HPC workloads that can be accelerated with GPUs or FPGAs should also evaluate other instance families in the Amazon EC2 portfolio that include those resources to find the ideal instance for their workload.

Q. Which operating systems/AMIs are supported on C5 Instances?

EBS backed HVM AMIs with support for ENA networking and booting from NVMe-based storage can be used with C5 instances. The following AMIs are supported on C5:

• Amazon Linux 2014.03 or newer
  
• Ubuntu 14.04 or newer
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 or newer
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 or newer
• CentOS 7 or newer
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2016
• FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE
  

For optimal local NVMe-based SSD storage performance on C5d, Linux kernel version 4.9+ is recommended.

Q. What are the storage options available to C5 customers?

C5 instances use EBS volumes for storage, are EBS-optimized by default, and offer up to 9 Gbps throughput to both encrypted and unencrypted EBS volumes. C5 instances access EBS volumes via PCI attached NVM Express (NVMe) interfaces. NVMe is an efficient and scalable storage interface commonly used for flash based SSDs such as local NVMe storage provided with I3 instances. Though the NVMe interface may provide lower latency compared to Xen paravirtualized block devices, when used to access EBS volumes the volume type, size, and provisioned IOPS (if applicable) will determine the overall latency and throughput characteristics of the volume. When NVMe is used to provide EBS volumes, they are attached and detached by PCI hotplug.

Q. What network interface is supported on C5 instances?

C5 instances use the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) for networking and enable Enhanced Networking by default. With ENA, C5 instances can utilize up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth.

Q. Which storage interface is supported on C5 instances?

C5 instances will support only NVMe EBS device model. EBS volumes attached to C5 instances will appear as NVMe devices. NVMe is a modern storage interface that provides latency reduction and results in increased disk I/O and throughput.

Q. How many EBS volumes can be attached to C5 instances?

C5 instances support a maximum for 27 EBS volumes for all Operating systems. The limit is shared with ENI attachments which can be found here http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-eni.html. For example: since every instance has at least 1 ENI, if you have 3 additional ENI attachments on the c4.2xlarge, you can attach 24 EBS volumes to that instance.

Q. What is the underlying hypervisor on C5 instances?

C5 instances use a new EC2 hypervisor that is based on core KVM technology.

Q: Why does the total memory reported by the operating system not match the advertised memory of the C5 instance type?

In C5, portions of the total memory for an instance are reserved from use by the Operating System including areas used by the virtual BIOS for things like ACPI tables and for devices like the virtual video RAM.

Q: What are the key use cases for Amazon EC2 M5 Instances?

M5 instances offer a good choice for running development and test environments, web, mobile and gaming applications, analytics applications, and business critical applications including ERP, HR, CRM, and collaboration apps. Customers who are interested in running their data intensive workloads (e.g. HPC, or SOLR clusters) on instances with a higher memory footprint will also find M5 to be a good fit. Workloads that heavily use single and double precision floating point operations and vector processing such as video processing workloads and need higher memory can benefit substantially from the AVX-512 instructions that M5 supports.

Q: Why should customers choose EC2 M5 Instances over EC2 M4 Instances?

Compared with EC2 M4 Instances, the new EC2 M5 Instances deliver customers greater compute and storage performance, larger instance sizes for less cost, consistency and security. The biggest benefit of EC2 M5 Instances is based on its usage of the latest generation of Intel Xeon Scalable processors (aka Skylake), which deliver up to 14% improvement in price/performance compared to M4. With AVX-512 support in M5 vs. the older AVX2 in M4, customers will gain 2x higher performance in workloads requiring floating point operations. M5 instances offer up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth and up to 10 Gbps of dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS. M5 instances also feature significantly higher networking and Amazon EBS performance on smaller instance sizes with EBS burst capability.

Q: How does support for Intel AVX-512 benefit EC2 M5 Instance customers

Intel Advanced Vector Extension 512 (AVX-512) is a set of new CPU instructions available on the latest Intel Xeon Scalable processor family, that can accelerate performance for workloads and usages such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and video processing, cryptography and data compression, among others. Intel AVX-512 offers exceptional processing of encryption algorithms, helping to reduce the performance overhead for cryptography, which means EC2 M5 customers can deploy more secure data and services into distributed environments without compromising performance

Q: What are the various storage options available to M5 customers?

M5 instances leverage EBS volumes for storage. There is currently no local storage option for M5 instances.

Q: Which network interface is supported on M5 instances?

M5 instances support only ENA based Enhanced Networking. M5 instances will not support netback. With ENA, M5 instances can deliver up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth between instances when launched within a Placement Group.

Q. Which operating systems/AMIs are supported on M5 Instances?

EBS backed HVM AMIs with support for ENA networking and booting from NVMe-based storage can be used with M5 instances. The following AMIs are supported on M5:

• Amazon Linux 2014.03 or newer
• Ubuntu 14.04 or newer
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 or newer
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 or newer
• CentOS 7 or newer
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2016
• FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE

For optimal local NVMe-based SSD storage performance on M5d, Linux kernel version 4.9+ is recommended.

* For the t2.medium, single threaded applications can use 40% of 1 core, or if needed, multithreaded applications can use 20% each of 2 cores.

**For the t2.large, single threaded applications can use 60% of 1 core, or if needed, multithreaded applications can use 30% each of 2 cores.

*** For the t2.xlarge, single threaded applications can use 90% of 1 core, or if needed, multithreaded applications can use 45% each of 2 cores or 22.5% of all 4 cores.

**** For the t2.large, single threaded applications can use all of 1 core, or if needed, multithreaded applications can use 67.5% each of 2 cores or 16.875% of all 8 cores.

Q. How do I choose the right Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for my T2 instances?

You will want to verify that the minimum memory requirements of your operating system and applications are within the memory allocated for each T2 instance size (e.g. 512 MiB for t2.nano). Operating systems with Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) that consume significant memory and CPU, for example Microsoft Windows, might need a t2.micro or larger instance size for many use cases. You can find AMIs suitable for the t2.nano instance types on AWS Marketplace. Windows customers who do not need the GUI can use the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Core AMI.

Q: When should I choose a Burstable Performance Instance, such as T2?

T2 instances provide a cost-effective platform for a broad range of general purpose production workloads. T2 Unlimited instances can sustain high CPU performance for as long as required. If your workloads consistently require CPU usage much higher than the baseline, consider a dedicated CPU instance family such as the M or C.

Q: How can I see the CPU Credit balance for each T2 instance?

You can see the CPU Credit balance for each T2 instance in EC2 per-Instance metrics in Amazon CloudWatch. T2 instances have four metrics, CPUCreditUsage, CPUCreditBalance, CPUSurplusCreditBalance and CPUSurplusCreditsCharged. CPUCreditUsage indicates the amount of CPU Credits used. CPUCreditBalance indicates the balance of CPU Credits. CPUSurplusCredit Balance indicates credits used for bursting in the absence of earned credits. CPUSurplusCreditsCharged indicates credits that are charged when average usage exceeds the baseline.

Q: What happens to CPU performance if my T2 instance is running low on credits (CPU Credit balance is near zero)?

If your T2 instance has a zero CPU Credit balance, performance will remain at baseline CPU performance. For example, the t2.micro provides baseline CPU performance of 10% of a physical CPU core. If your instance’s CPU Credit balance is approaching zero, CPU performance will be lowered to baseline performance over a 15-minute interval.

Q: Does my T2 instance credit balance persist at stop / start?

No, a stopped instance does not retain its previously earned credit balance.

Q: Can T2 instances be purchased as Reserved Instances or Spot Instances?

T2 instances can be purchased as On-Demand Instances, Reserved Instances or Spot Instances.

Q. What are EC2 High Memory instances?

Amazon EC2 High Memory instances offer 6 TB, 9 TB, or 12 TB of memory in a single instance. These instances are designed to run large in-memory databases, including production installations of SAP HANA, in the cloud. EC2 High Memory instances are the first Amazon EC2 instances powered by an 8-socket platform with latest generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8176M (Skylake) processors that are optimized for mission-critical enterprise workloads. EC2 High Memory instances deliver high networking throughput and low-latency with 25 Gbps of aggregate network bandwidth using Amazon Elastic Network Adapter (ENA)-based Enhanced Networking. EC2 High Memory instances are EBS-Optimized by default, and support encrypted and unencrypted EBS volumes.

Q. Are High Memory instances certified by SAP to run SAP HANA workloads?

High Memory instances are certified by SAP for running Business Suite on HANA, the next-generation Business Suite S/4HANA, Data Mart Solutions on HANA, Business Warehouse on HANA, and SAP BW/4HANA in production environments.

Q. Which instances are available within High Memory instance category?

Three High Memory instances are available. u-6tb1.metal offers 6 TB memory; u-9tb1.metal offers 9 TB memory; and u-12tb1.metal offers 12 TB memory. Each High Memory instance offers 448 logical processors, where each logical processor is a hyperthread on the 8-socket platform with total of 224 CPU cores.

Q. What are the storage options available with High Memory instances?

High Memory instances support Amazon EBS volumes for storage. High Memory instances are EBS-optimized by default, and offer up to 14 Gbps of storage bandwidth to both encrypted and unencrypted EBS volumes.

Q. Which storage interface is supported on High Memory instances?

High Memory instances access EBS volumes via PCI attached NVM Express (NVMe) interfaces. EBS volumes attached to High Memory instances appear as NVMe devices. NVMe is an efficient and scalable storage interface, which is commonly used for flash based SSDs and provides latency reduction and results in increased disk I/O and throughput. The EBS volumes are attached and detached by PCI hotplug.

Q. What network performance is supported on High Memory instances?

High Memory instances use the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) for networking and enable Enhanced Networking by default. With ENA, High Memory instances can utilize up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth.

Q. Can I run High Memory instances in my existing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)?

You can run High Memory instances in your existing and new Amazon VPCs.

Q. What is the underlying hypervisor on High Memory instances?

High Memory instances are EC2 bare metal instances, and do not run on a hypervisor. These instances allow the operating systems to run directly on the underlying hardware, while still providing access to the benefits of the cloud.

Q. Do High Memory instances enable CPU power management state control?

Yes. You can configure C-states and P-states on High Memory instances. You can use C-states to enable higher turbo frequencies (as much as 3.8 GHz). You can also use P-states to lower performance variability by pinning all cores at P1 or higher P states, which is similar to disabling Turbo, and running consistently at the base CPU clock speed.

Q. What purchase options are available for High Memory instances?

High Memory instances are available on EC2 Dedicated Hosts on a 3-year Reservation. After the 3-year reservation expires, you can continue using the host at an hourly rate or release it anytime.

Q. What is the lifecycle of a Dedicated Host?

Once a Dedicated Host is allocated within your account, it will be standing by for your use. You can then launch an instance with a tenancy of "host" using the RunInstances API, and can also stop/start/terminate the instance through the API. You can use the AWS Management Console to manage the Dedicated Host and the instance. The Dedicated Host will be allocated to your account for the period of 3-year reservation. After the 3-year reservation expires, you can continue using the host or release it anytime.

Q. Can I launch, stop/start, and terminate High Memory instances using AWS CLI/SDK?

You can launch, stop/start, and terminate instances on your EC2 Dedicated Hosts using AWS CLI/SDK.

Q. Which AMIs are supported with High memory instances?

EBS-backed HVM AMIs with support for ENA networking can be used with High Memory instances. The latest Amazon Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux Server, and Windows Server AMIs are supported. Operating system support for SAP HANA workloads on High Memory instances include: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 for SAP, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 for SAP, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 for SAP.

Q. Are there standard SAP HANA reference deployment frameworks available for the High Memory instance and the AWS Cloud?

You can use the AWS Quick Start reference HANA deployments to rapidly deploy all the necessary HANA building blocks on High Memory instances following SAP’s recommendations for high performance and reliability. AWS Quick Starts are modular and customizable, so you can layer additional functionality on top or modify them for your own implementations.

Q: Why don’t I see M1, C1, CC2 and HS1 instances on the pricing pages any more?

These have been moved to the Previous Generation Instance page.

Q: Are these Previous Generation instances still being supported?

Yes. Previous Generation instances are still fully supported.

Q: Can I still use/add more Previous Generation instances?

Yes. Previous Generation instances are still available as On-Demand, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instance, from our APIs, CLI and EC2 Management Console interface.

Q: Are my Previous Generation instances going to be deleted?

No. Your C1, C3, CC2, CR1, G2, HS1, M1, M2, M3, R3 and T1 instances are still fully functional and will not be deleted because of this change.

Q: Are Previous Generation instances being discontinued soon?

Currently, there are no plans to end of life Previous Generation instances. However, with any rapidly evolving technology the latest generation will typically provide the best performance for the price and we encourage our customers to take advantage of technological advancements.

Q: Will my Previous Generation instances I purchased as a Reserved Instance be affected or changed?

No. Your Reserved Instances will not change, and the Previous Generation instances are not going away.

Q. When should I use Memory-optimized instances?

Memory-optimized instances offer large memory size for memory intensive applications including in-memory applications, in-memory databases, in-memory analytics solutions, High Performance Computing (HPC), scientific computing, and other memory-intensive applications.

Q. When should I use X1 instances?

X1 instances are ideal for running in-memory databases like SAP HANA, big data processing engines like Apache Spark or Presto, and high performance computing (HPC) applications. X1 instances are certified by SAP to run production environments of the next-generation Business Suite S/4HANA, Business Suite on HANA (SoH), Business Warehouse on HANA (BW), and Data Mart Solutions on HANA on the AWS cloud.

Q. When should I use X1e instances?

X1e instances are ideal for running in-memory databases like SAP HANA, high-performance databases and other memory optimized enterprise applications. X1e instances offer twice the memory per vCPU compared to the X1 instances. The x1e.32xlarge instance is certified by SAP to run production environments of the next-generation Business Suite S/4HANA, Business Suite on HANA (SoH), Business Warehouse on HANA (BW), and Data Mart Solutions on HANA on the AWS Cloud.

Q. How do X1 and X1e instances differ?

X1e instances offer 32GB of memory per vCPU whereas X1 instances offer 16GB of memory per vCPU. X1e instance sizes enable six instance configurations starting from 4 vCPUs and 122 GiB memory up to 128 vCPUs and 3,904 GiB of memory. X1 instances enable two instance configurations, 64 vCPUs with 976 GiB memory and 128 vCPUs with 1,952 GiB memory.

Q. What are the key specifications of Intel E7 (codenamed Haswell) processors that power X1 and X1e instances?

The E7 processors have a high core count to support workloads that scale efficiently on large number of cores. The Intel E7 processors also feature high memory bandwidth and larger L3 caches to boost the performance of in-memory applications. In addition, the Intel E7 processor:

• Enables increased cryptographic performance via the latest Intel AES-NI feature.
• Supports Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX) to boost the performance of in-memory transactional data processing.
• Supports Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2) processor instructions to expand most integer commands to 256 bits.
  

Q. Do X1 and X1e instances enable CPU power management state control

Yes. You can configure C-states and P-states on x1e.32xlarge, x1e.16xlarge, x1e.8xlarge, x1.32xlarge and x1.16xlarge instances. You can use C-states to enable higher turbo frequencies (as much as 3.1 GHz with one or two core turbo). You can also use P-states to lower performance variability by pinning all cores at P1 or higher P states, which is similar to disabling Turbo, and running consistently at the base CPU clock speed.

Q: What operating systems are supported on X1 and X1e instances?

X1 and X1e instances provide high number of vCPUs, which might cause launch issues in some Linux operating systems that have a lower vCPU limit. We strongly recommend that you use the latest AMIs when you launch these instances.

AMI support for SAP HANA workloads include: SUSE Linux 12, SUSE Linux 12 SP1, SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, and RHEL 7.2 for SAP HANA.

x1e.32xlarge will also support Windows Server 2012 R2 and 2012 RTM. x1e.xlarge, x1e.2xlarge, x1e.4xlarge, x1e.8xlarge, x1e.16xlarge and x1.32xlarge will also support Windows Server 2012 R2, 2012 RTM and 2008 R2 64bit (Windows Server 2008 SP2 and older versions will not be supported) and x1.16xlarge will support Windows Server 2012 R2, 2012 RTM, 2008 R2 64bit, 2008 SP2 64bit, and 2003 R2 64bit (Windows Server 32bit versions will not be supported).

Q. What storage options are available for X1 customers?

X1 instances offer SSD based instance store, which is ideal for temporary storage of information such as logs, buffers, caches, temporary tables, temporary computational data, and other temporary content. X1 instance store provides the best I/O performance when you use a Linux kernel that supports persistent grants, an extension to the Xen block ring protocol.

X1 instances are EBS-optimized by default and offer up to 14 Gbps of dedicated bandwidth to EBS volumes. EBS offers multiple volume types to support a wide variety of workloads. For more information see the EC2 User Guide.

Q. How do I build cost-effective failover solution on X1 and X1e instances?

You can design simple and cost-effective failover solutions on X1 instances using Amazon EC2 Auto Recovery, an Amazon EC2 feature that is designed to better manage failover upon instance impairment. You can enable Auto Recovery for X1 instances by creating an AWS CloudWatch alarm. Choose the “EC2 Status Check Failed (System)” metric and select the “Recover this instance” action. Instance recovery is subject to underlying limitations, including those reflected in the Instance Recovery Troubleshooting documentation. For more information visit Auto Recovery documentation and Creating Amazon CloudWatch Alarms respectively.

Q. Are there standard SAP HANA reference deployment frameworks available for the X1 instance and the AWS Cloud?

You can use the AWS Quick Start reference HANA deployments to rapidly deploy all the necessary HANA building blocks on X1 instances following SAP’s recommendations for high performance and reliability. AWS Quick Starts are modular and customizable, so you can layer additional functionality on top or modify them for your own implementations. For additional information on deploying HANA on AWS, please refer to SAP HANA on AWS Cloud: Quick Start Reference Deployment Guide.

Q. What is a Dense-storage Instance?

Dense-storage instances are designed for workloads that require high sequential read and write access to very large data sets, such as Hadoop distributed computing, massively parallel processing data warehousing, and log processing applications. The Dense-storage instances offer the best price/GB-storage and price/disk-throughput across other EC2 instances.

Q. How do Dense-storage and HDD-storage instances compare to High I/O instances?

High